


Convergence

by genmitsu



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Eventual Romance, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:02:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genmitsu/pseuds/genmitsu
Summary: What if Jim and Oswald had met when they were kids? What if it's not exactly what had happened?
Relationships: Jim Gordon/Barbara Kean (briefly), Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Comments: 17
Kudos: 30
Collections: Gobblepot Summer 2020





	Convergence

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, the idea ran away from me and became bigger, so this is going to be a two-part story. I hope you enjoy this one.

Jim’s running. The grass is almost as tall as he is, and it feels like he could be in a forest. It parts easily before him, green stalks bending as he flashes past and springing back almost undisturbed. The ground may have his footprints, but the grasses hide him well. Everything around him is warm and gentle and green for as far as the eye can see. The meadow is big, very, very big, and it’s important not to go straight to the spot. What if someone follows him? What if they find out where he goes? He runs faster, his chest heaving, his body exhilarated by movement and he’s so happy.

He takes enough detours, he thinks, throwing the possible tail off, and so he turns towards the secret spot. You could find it by accident, but you’re not likely to find it on purpose unless you know where to look. Jim knows. He slows down his run, and by the end he just walks, trying to catch his breath again, but he’s still huffing when he stands in front of the small grass hut.

They made it themselves, cut the grass and tied it up, and it’s a small hut, but they fit there, and their treasures fit there and Jim’s brought his comic books there because it’s much more fun to read them together. They planned to finish the latest issue together today.

Jim approaches the hut, listening closely. Is he inside already? Jim rarely comes first. The hut is silent, but something tells Jim that he’s in there - he wouldn’t be able to tell how he knows but he does, and his heart starts beating faster.

He stands in front of the entrance and taps it in a way they’ve agreed upon - two quick taps, and one, and another.

“Come in, Jim.”

Jim grins, glad to have been right about him being already there. He comes inside the hut.

He’s eight years old.

The meadow didn’t shrink, but it seems smaller now and the grasses only reach his chest when he runs. It makes it more difficult, it’s like he’s not one with it now, and the meadow tries to trip him sometimes. He’s not slowing down. He runs and he runs and he runs, and then he’s at the clearing and he throws himself down on the ground and rolls onto his back, breathing heavily, his arms spread.

“You didn’t have to run that fast, Jim,” he hears the familiar chuckle to his side. He knows that he’s there even without turning his head towards the voice.

“I wanted to be here first,” Jim pouts. That’s not all of it - he also didn’t want to miss a minute of the time they could spend together.

“Maybe next time you’ll have better luck.”

“Yeah-yeah…” Jim can’t be upset for long, not with him. “Did you bring it?”

“Of course I did.”

The square piece of black glass is pressed into his palm, carefully, and Jim immediately brings it to his eye.

“Amazing!” he gushes. “You can actually see it! Oh this is so cool.”

He watches the eclipse, the sun slowly being overtaken by the moon, and there’s movement to his left. Jim turns his head and sees - that sharp profile, unlike anyone else’s, and a hand that could be called dainty if he knew that word, holding another piece of glass.

“Oswald,” Jim calls, just to see if he would turn his way. He doesn’t, but his eyes meet Jim’s anyway and he feels something stir inside as Oswald looks at him questioningly.

“Thanks,” Jim says, and Oswald nods with a smile, turning his attention back to the happenings in the sky above them.

They’re watching the full solar eclipse together in companionable silence, and the moment it gets dark, their hands bump against each other and stay there. It’s a strange moment of sudden, eerie quietness that feels very still - the bees and the birds fall silent and the meadow loses its usual hum. The air itself seems uniform and solid, there is no hint of the slightest breeze. Their hands remain pressed together until the sun starts shining again.

Jim’s twelve.

He’s so much taller now, and broader in shoulders, and everyone tells him he should be doing sports. Jim doesn’t want to. He admits that there’s a certain appeal to being a part of a team, but Jim doesn’t want to make an effort to fit in. He’s a bit of a rebel now, but not enough to make his mother worry… too much. He skips school sometimes. Spending time with Oswald is way more fun anyway, they talk and they read, and they talk again, and they argue like hell about things they’ve read, until they’re in each other’s face and trying so hard to win the argument. Their opinions are sometimes so starkly different there’s just no hope of reaching a consensus but they somehow make peace with that. It has something to do with the way Oswald smiles at Jim, making him want to concede just to be able to see more of it.

They’re at the meadow. It’s green and speckled with flowers, and the wind makes it roll like ocean waves. Oswald takes a deep breath and Jim follows suit - the air here is warm, honeyed - it’s like a treat.

“Remember how you used to always run around here?” Oswald asks with a sly grin.

“I wanted to be here first just once,” Jim says. “And you were already there every time. How did you do that?”

“Well…” Oswald tilts his head to the side. “Catch me!”

And he darts off into the meadow, just like that, leaving Jim to stand there before he exclaims “Hey, not fair!” and takes off to chase after him.

Running feels as natural as ever - the wind in his face, the grass under his feet, the rush of excitement in his blood, beating with his pulse. Oswald is surprisingly quick on his feet and Jim has to really try to even keep up, and even more so if he wants to catch him. Jim makes a desperate lunge - and suddenly he catches Oswald, grabbing him from behind and crashing their bodies together - Jim almost lost his footing for a moment.

Jim’s chest is heaving, and he wanted to say something smart when he caught Oswald, but he’s suddenly very aware of Oswald pressing against him, of his breath and the beat of his heart that makes the sound of their secret tap when combined with Jim’s - two quicks, and one, and another - and a small bead of sweat on Oswald’s neck that slides down his hot skin and disappears under the collar of his t-shirt. His subtle scent is even more of a treat.

“See, Jim?” Oswald huffs in the circle of his arms, making no attempt to break free. “You keep chasing me. That’s why you’re never here first.”

“Smartass,” Jim chuckles despite himself. The meadow is buzzing around them, but for all he knows the world is standing still.

Jim Gordon is fourteen and he’s in love with his best friend.

He’s sitting on the couch, looking out the window. It’s drizzling today, and it’s comforting somehow to see all that grey outside and the drops sliding down the window. Some of them race one another, only to end up forming a bigger drop. Jim tries to stifle a yawn.

“Sleepy, Mister Gordon?” asks Ms. Jameson in her usual good-natured manner. She always calls him like that but somehow it doesn’t make her seem like a teacher.

“A little,” he smiles back.

“What have you been losing sleep about?”

“Oh, you know, studying. The tests are coming up and I haven’t been too serious about it lately. I should be thinking more about my future instead of dwelling on the past.”

“Are you studying alone?” she asks again, seemingly interested in it no more than usual. Jim likes this therapist. She’s a little like Mom, calm and collected, but her hair is more dusted with grey and there are more wrinkles on her face. Her voice is soothing too. Do they train therapists to have voices like that?

“Yeah, you know, it’s a lot easier. My own pace, my own notes… and I don’t have to share the snacks with anyone,” he grins.

“What’s your favourite one?”

“M&M’s,” Jim says. “The peanut ones.”

“Those are the best, aren’t they?” Ms. Jameson smiles conspiratorially. “I should swap the candies in the lobby for those.”

“If you do, I might never make it past the lobby!” Jim laughs and she makes a note in her notepad.

“Say, Mister Gordon…” she asks casually, “have you been seeing Oswald lately?”

“Who?..” Jim tilts his head. “Oh! No, I haven’t. I don’t think I will.”

“Why do you suppose so, Mister Gordon?”

Jim sighs. Looks down. Looks back up at his therapist.

“I… I think I imagined him.”

The rain is still drizzling when Jim emerges from his session. Mom is waiting to pick him up in the car, so he just turns his collar up and dashes for it, not bothering with the umbrella. She’s smiling at him - he smiles back. There’s still just a little bit of tension between them regarding this, because Jim didn’t go to therapy willingly, not at first. They had to have an ugly fight before, with Jim actually shouting at her to leave him the hell alone, and her breaking down crying, hiding her face in her palms and sobbing that she’d tried to give him time to grieve and to cope but it was only getting worse and Jim was slipping away to some unreal world and unreal people. He was standing there over her, dumbstruck, as she sobbed, so frail and slight, and he was so much taller, stronger, and the man of their little broken family with dad gone forever and Roger so far away for so long. Jim was trembling too, with guilt and hurt and sympathy all mixing together inside, as he sat next to her and hugged her. He didn’t believe her accusations - Oswald was as real as the both of them, he’s touched him, he’s talked to him, he was _real_ \- but he promised he’d go to therapy, if only to bring her some peace of mind. He thought he’d be done with it in no time. But…

“How did it go today, Jimmy?” Mom asks after a while, when they get out of the worst traffic.

“Good, I think. Miss Jameson said I’m making progress. I just hope you won’t have to pay for it any longer.”

“Oh shush, money’s no issue,” she clicks her tongue. “I’m glad the therapy is helping you to move on.”

“Yeah…”

She gets busy with a tricky turn. Jim watches the wipers move back and forth over the windshield, getting rid of the raindrops. A stray one manages to slide almost all the way down, but the wiper picks it off at the very end. There’s soft music playing on the radio, something old, Jim thinks, and he ends up humming along with _‘Goodnight, sweetheart’_ as they drive.

The drizzle and the long drive make him doze off. His fingers move slightly as he sleeps, almost like he’s tapping on something. Two quick taps, and one, and another.

Jim is fifteen.

He’s lying on his bunk, engrossed in a book. Today is his day off, and all the entertainment options at the base have been exhausted already. There wasn’t much to do here in the first place, with everything being so empty and wind-swept and arid. Jim misses the streets of Gotham, he misses the rains and the fog and the clouds. He has none of it here.

Jim notices some shadow from the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t try to make eye contact. Maybe whoever this is would just go away.

“Whatcha reading there, Gordon?”

Jim tries to contain a sigh. No hope for any kind of seclusion here, after all. Dorrance’s not too bad at least, they can usually find something to talk about, even if Jim’s not too enthusiastic. He lifts his book, demonstrating the title on the cover.

“Le… Cass… hell, Gordon, how do you pronounce that?”

“ _Le Capitaine Casse-Cou,_ ” Jim replies, unable to ignore him without being too rude.

“Brushing up on your French, huh? Come on, the babes will be all over a pretty boy like you even without it when you get back.”

“Language proficiency is one of the requirements, if you’ve forgotten,” Jim replies in a dull voice. If this is Dorrance flirting, he doesn’t want to encourage it.

“I’ll stick with Spanish, thank you.”

“Isn’t it a waste to just go with the language you already know?” Jim raises his eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Shh, don’t out me like that,” Dorrance laughs. “Anyway, the boys are having a poker game tonight. You wanna come?”

Jim contemplates the offer a little, mostly for show. He’s already decided.

“Not tonight. I’m beat. Thanks though.”

“Alright, suit yourself, Gordon,” Dorrance grumbles, but doesn’t try to press it, to Jim’s relief. He leaves.

Jim turns on his side. The adventures of the cunning captain fail to capture his attention now. Jim closes his eyes, and sees Oswald - not the young teenager whom he’d seen last, but close to his own age; pale and gangly, as if he’s had a sudden growth spurt. He’s sitting in the library, alone, but suddenly he puts down the book he’s reading - the same as Jim’s - and raises his eyes at him.

“I miss you,” Jim whispers yearningly.

He’s barely nineteen.

They’re under heavy fire. Pinned down. They weren’t even supposed to meet any hostiles here, they were scoping the terrain, when suddenly someone opened fire. Leroy got wounded but they managed to get to cover, and now they cannot move.

“Radio?” Jim asks Davidson, who’s been trying to get through and request backup.

“No response. I think we’re being jammed.”

“Damn it. They were waiting for us,” Jim bites his lip.

The ruins of a bombed town were too good a place for an ambush. There were no reports of anyone still being there, so they must have been hiding in the ruins ever since… or had a secret unmonitored passage into the town. Jim’s squad didn’t spot any signs of it on the images provided by aerial recon. Underground then? Whatever it is, it would be too risky to use for retreat even if they knew about it.

Something darkens Jim’s view, and he suddenly sees someone’s back. A civilian - dark clothes, black umbrella… it’s raining, and Jim involuntarily tries to brush the raindrops from his face, but only touches dry skin. His vision clears up again.

“Roberts, do you have eyes on any of them?” he asks.

“No, sir.”

“Zane?”

“No, sir, nothing.”

Jim racks his mind. There were at least seven of them firing at his squad, and it sounded as if they were boxed in. He signals to his men and they draw the fire while he listens hard to determine the directions the shots are coming from. East side sounds more delayed and scattered - two shooters at most, and further away. It’s also the side that would bring them closer to the edge of the town, reverse their position.

“Davidson, anything?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Alright.”

It’s risky. They might be heading straight into a kill box. But for their frequencies to get blocked the enemies have to be using a stationary jammer and this, along with the number of shooters, makes Jim think the enemies might be less mobile than his squad is and that they’re supposed to keep them here until the bigger guns arrive and Jim’s squad gets captured.

“Listen up,” Jim commands. “We’re going to fall back along the East side. Davidson, bring Leroy. Zane, Roberts, ready the smokes. After that, on me.”

“Ready?” he waits for them to acknowledge. “Go!”

They throw the smoke grenades and rush forward. Jim leads them, fast-paced, and they’re being shot at but they keep moving and firing back, and then Jim’s radio cracks with a signal coming through finally, and he barks a request for backup - something sharp grazes his shoulder, throwing him back, but they gotta move, move, move--

His shoulder wound landed him in a hospital for a while. None of his men got killed. He got a commendation for his conduct too, especially in view of the town turning out to be an important tactical ground.

But as Jim lies in his hospital bed, he keeps thinking back to that strange vision. It’s Oswald, it has to be. Jim hasn’t seen him in so long. What is he up to? Is he even real? He has to be… right?..

Funny, when he went to therapy, he was positive that Oswald was real, and he fooled his therapist _knowing_ that Oswald was a real person. Why does he doubt that now? Is it because he’d seen him so briefly, and it’s just something ephemeral, like a hallucination, a vision? It looked like a shot from a black and white movie. The longing is almost unbearable despite his doubts, and Jim’s sleep is uneasy.

He’s twenty-two, and he really wants to go home.

It’s cold and grey, and the wind smells like rain up here, and Jim takes a lungful. He still can’t get enough of this air, even knowing how polluted it is. It smells like home.

“Aren’t you cold out there?” Barbara calls him from inside.

“No, it’s fine.” He takes another deep breath and turns towards her. “But you’d better take your blue coat today. You’ll freeze in your other one.”

“You’re so sweet,” she smiles at him. “Come inside, coffee’s ready.”

He takes another look at the city below before leaving the balcony. Their apartment is much warmer than the outside, and the smell of coffee mixes with the scents of cinnamon rolls Barbara heated up in the microwave. Neither of them is much of a cook, even though Jim sort of learned to while in college, but they end up eating takeout most of the time. Coming home to a cooked dinner would have been nice, Jim admits, but he doesn’t want his pretty girlfriend to sacrifice her own free time for that if she doesn’t feel inclined to. It’s bad enough she wakes up at the same time he does.

“Any plans for today?” he asks her, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Barbara is sitting on the kitchen counter with a cup of her own, looking absolutely delicious in an oversized cardigan.

“Mmhm. Not a lot. I promised to attend the gallery opening with Amanda. I might pick something up for my own.” She takes a sip and knits her brows together. “Oh, and my parents wanted to meet you. They’ve made a reservation at _Le Saphir_ tonight. Eight o’clock. Do you think you could make it?”

“I should,” Jim takes a bite of the cinnamon roll. “Guess I’ll have to prepare for extreme vetting?”

“They can be awfully judgmental,” Barbara scrunches up her nose. “Maybe I can tell them you’re busy and we’d postpone it.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind.”

She looks at him fondly, clearly admiring his courage, and it strokes Jim’s ego. “They might be more dangerous than those guys you meet on patrol,” she muses. “The things they say sometimes are… devastating.”

Barbara is making a despondent face and Jim can’t leave it like that. He gets up to stand in front of her, putting his hands on the counter on either side of her knees. She makes a small smile, too sad for his liking, and he presses his lips to hers, stealing a coffee-laced kiss. The kitchen suddenly flickers to something grey, but it passes quicker than Jim can focus on it. Barbara smiles a little happier now. Needs more kisses, Jim decides and carries on with that plan until she starts giggling.

“They don’t scare me,” he says, not in a hurry to move away. “What kind of cop would I be if some harsh words could hurt me? We’ll go in, take fire, and regroup. And I’ll make it up to you after.” He grins at Barbara suggestively and gives her another kiss before returning to the table to finish his coffee. She seems to have brightened up considerably.

“Say, have you ever had an imaginary friend?” Jim asks after a pause.

“Hm? Oh yeah. I did!” Barbara says. “Madeline! She was a mermaid with rainbow-coloured sparkly hair. Stayed with me until I started school, I think. Why?”

“Just something that came up yesterday in a briefing about a lost kid,” he shrugs. “Made me curious.”

“You never had one?”

“I don’t really remember,” Jim shakes his head.

Jim is twenty-nine.

He’s the youngest detective they have and assigned to a partner who just gets on his nerves with his lackadaisical attitude. It’s totally mutual - Jim feels that he irritates Harvey Bullock just as much back with his enthusiasm and zeal. He seems to irritate everyone he comes across lately, but Jim doesn’t intend to back down. The corruption and disregard for the law demonstrated by virtually every police officer he’s met on his way to being a detective only cemented his resolve to improve the situation. Jim wants to live in a city where the police would do their jobs properly - so that young kids wouldn’t have to go through witnessing both their parents getting killed right in front of them.

Jim might not approve of Bullock’s attitude, but he has to admit that he’s got skills as he watches him conduct interrogations. They still result in nothing, and Bullock drives them to Fish Mooney’s.

Jim’s been in a lot of seedy-looking places before, his patrols taking him everywhere, but the moment he enters the club, his skin prickles with apprehension. The cries and shouts from out back don’t help either, setting him even more on edge. It’s almost a relief when Fish agrees to let him go check it out.

The closer he gets, the more tense he gets. Something seems to shift around him - but the streets of Gotham are so grey he can’t distinguish it anymore, despite the red club lights. He hears voices from the alley behind the club.

“Whoa, take it easy, Penguin.”

“You know I don’t like to be called that.”

It almost makes Jim miss a step. The voice, no, not even the voice itself, but something in the manner - something he can’t put a finger on. His legs carry him forward before he realizes the reason.

Jim sees him from the back, dark clothes, black umbrella, and recognizes him immediately. It doesn’t add up in his brain - his childhood friend, soft-spoken and gentle, quick temper notwithstanding, standing with a baseball bat over a bleeding man.

“How’s everybody doing?” Jim says as a way of announcing his presence, and Oswald whips around instantly. Something flickers in his eyes, but Jim can’t tell if he recognizes him, not at all.

“Who are you?” some goon asks.

“James Gordon, GCPD.” Nothing, even at the sound of his name. Has Jim been fooling himself all this time? He doesn’t care to listen to the goon’s introduction, focusing on Oswald instead. He’s different from how he was as a child. Pale and thin to the point of gauntness, messy bangs - he used to comb his hair to one side but it still got messy as they played around and Jim recognizes every damn tuft - his gaze is hard and calculating now even as he drops the bat on Jim’s order.

“All in fun,” Oswald says, cheeky, the same as when he’d told the bullies they were so dumb they couldn’t walk and talk at the same time - and both he and Jim ended up running like hell when the insult made it into the bullies’ brains.

Jim can’t get the meeting out of his head. He’s distracted at home, and with Barbara. Somehow it feels fake, everything around him feels fake and unreal. He’s standing outside on the balcony, listening to the city bustling below, sirens and signals, and people. The air is wet again, promising rain.

It spirals down - another brief meeting with Oswald when Jim goes to confront Fish Mooney and something, there’s something in his gaze again but it’s not recognition and Jim gets frustrated with it, with him for no reason - and everything turns out so much more complicated than he’d thought initially, and no easy choices - and they end up on a pier with Harvey handing Jim a pistol to put a bullet in Oswald’s brain for snitching on the mob.

Oswald begs him for his life as they walk to the end of the pier, eyes almost blue in the cold morning light, bright with tears and fear - no recognition even now, even as Jim recognizes every movement that he makes and every gesture, and he can’t possibly kill him, not as a friend, not even if he wasn’t, even if he was indeed a criminal lowlife, Jim can’t, but he can’t see an escape either in the flood of Oswald’s words and his own roiling thoughts.

It’s only when Jim makes him turn around and Oswald begs again - it’s only when he can inhale his scent again - the same, still the same under the smells of the city and his own blood - Oswald smells the same as he did back then at the meadow - only then Jim sees a solution.

“Don’t ever come back to Gotham,” he growls into Oswald’s ear and pushes him into the water as he pretends to shoot him. He’s shaking.

He’s thirty years old, and in way over his head.


End file.
